Our Lady of the Cape Old Shrine

The Old Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape

The camera sits inside the Old Shrine (Petit Sanctuaire) of Notre-Dame-du-Cap, in the Cap-de-la-Madeleine district of Trois-Rivières, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Built of fieldstone between 1714 and 1720, it is one of the oldest churches in Canada still preserved in its original form and still used for worship.

What the view shows

The frame centres on the gilded high altar and, above it, the statue of Our Lady of the Cape beneath its canopy. Around the semicircular apse runs the invocation “Reine du Très Saint Rosaire, priez pour nous”, set over rows of marble ex-voto plaques left by grateful pilgrims; the carved wooden communion rail closes the foreground.

A statue with a story

Given to the parish in 1854, the statue was placed over the altar on 22 June 1888, when the chapel was dedicated to the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. That same day three witnesses, among them the Franciscan Frédéric Janssoone, reported seeing its eyes open, an event remembered as the Prodigy of the Eyes. The statue was solemnly crowned in 1904, and Pope John Paul II came as a pilgrim in 1984.

Pilgrimage on the St. Lawrence

The chapel is the heart of a wider sanctuary cared for by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate since 1902, with riverside gardens, the Rosary Bridge and the octagonal basilica opened in 1964. Pilgrims gather in the Old Shrine for the daily Rosary and Mass, which this camera broadcasts to those who cannot make the journey.